Private Eye Four-Pack, page 70
For the first time since he’d known them, Jacky and Soyko seemed impressed.
“And the girlfriend doesn’t have it?” Soyko asked.
“Maybe a little sliver of it, but he used to brag about keeping her in the dark. We’ve got to dig into this. If I intend to collect from his wife or whatever she is, I’d like to know that she can pay. If he was keeping a woman, you may have to talk to her. But no more of that Grundy Dopps cowboy nonsense.”
Anger flared across Soyko’s face. “I don’t want to hear about that.”
Cooper backed off fast. “Well, just see what you can find out about Mr. Shelton.” With that, the attorney stood up, pulled a twenty from his wallet, and dropped it on the table. He turned and walked out of the diner without another word.
Jacky Romp watched him leave and then, to no one in particular, he snarled again, “Goofy fuckwad.”
Ronnie Taggert lived in a garden-level apartment on the city’s predominantly Hispanic near West Side. The rent was a reasonable three hundred twenty-five dollars a month for a spacious two-bedroom, with a laundry next door and free cable. She had gotten used to living in that part of town from her days as a party-animal waitress at a rock-and-roll bar located there. Her apartment wasn’t a prestige address, but the building was clean and she liked the nearby Mexican restaurants. Cooper hated visiting her there, because he intensely disliked all minorities. He always felt as though he were taking a giant step down the social ladder when he crossed the viaduct over the Valley Highway, just north of Mile High Stadium, into “their neighborhoods.” Besides, in his book, “garden-level” was nothing more than a euphemism for “half-assed basement apartment.”
He knocked on her door and smiled when she answered in just a silk slip. “Hi, baby,” he said.
“Come on in.” She kissed him on the cheek as he walked past her. “How did your meeting with those two deranged Nazis go?”
“You should stop referring to my investigative staff as Nazis. Even in jest.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She lit a cigarette and turned her back to him.
“We had an interesting strategy discussion. You know I’m looking for a payoff from Doug Shelton’s estate. This Story woman doesn’t have a clue about what he paid me. She didn’t know about his dealing coke, nor about his womanizing on the side. She’s just some harmless, artificial advertising person.”
“Yeah?” Ronnie turned to face him. “You sure?”
“Indeed. I’ve developed a twofold plan. First, I’ve retained Mr. Soyko to kick around under some rocks at the bars and hangouts that Doug frequented. If he had a girlfriend, I want to meet her. The second part calls for us to draw up one hell of a bill for Story Moffatt. I’m figuring around forty thousand. This will have to be some of our best work, but if I can establish that they held themselves out as man and wife, I think I have a real shot at getting the court to order her to pay. Hell, I can probably just finesse it out of her without even having to go to court.”
Ronnie thought in silence. “Developed a twofold plan.” She hated the way he tried to make everything sound so formal. “Don’t be so sure about his girlfriend. My hunch is that she’s tougher than she looks. She held up pretty well at the funeral and she runs her own advertising agency. That’s a tough racket, advertising. You really think you’re going to stick a bill in her face, start screaming about court, and she’ll just hand over forty thousand?”
Cooper walked to the kitchenette just off the living room where the refrigerator was and grabbed a beer. He knew it would be a long shot trying to talk Story out of money. She’d have to be nuts to just fold up and pay. But there was money for the taking, and he hated the condescending attitude she gave him at the funeral. Maybe she is tough, but she’s never dealt with anyone like Soyko, he reasoned.
When he returned to the living room, he smiled at Ronnie. “Well, we shall just see what evolves. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Tom, with the way you practice law, damned near anything can happen.”
SEVEN
Story sent Streeter an authorization letter, and the following week he hit a dozen banks during a two-day stretch. Doug Shelton had no accounts or safe-deposit boxes at any of them. Then the bounty hunter got bored. One of the reasons he never went into law enforcement is that he didn’t have patience for repetitive, detail work. If the police were doing this search, they’d check every bank in the city. But Streeter liked to go on his instincts and his ability to read people and situations rather than relying on “procedures.” Also, the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Shelton kept a stash in a bank. As he told Frank after the two days, “Banks have short hours, which would be a definite drawback to a free-lance guy like Dougy.”
“What about ATMs?” the bondsman asked. “They’re open day and night.”
“Yeah, they’re always open, but you can only get a couple hundred dollars a day. That’s nowhere near what we’re talking about. Besides, ATMs and safe-deposit boxes can be traced.”
He decided to check out Doug’s court file. The criminal complaint would tell him a lot, like where he was arrested and if there were codefendants. He went to the basement of the Denver Courthouse, room thirty-eight, and got the complete file on Douglas Lawrence Shelton’s arrest of November 10: case number CR 94 1083. Although inactive, it was still over an inch thick.
Streeter copied every page and took it back to the church to read it. Most of it revealed nothing of value. The complaint and the arresting officer’s report primarily interested him. There were no codefendants: Doug was arrested alone. He was popped selling almost one pound of cocaine to a Denver undercover officer behind a bar just off the touristy Larimer Square. That translated to close to sixty thousand dollars in street value, about half for Doug at wholesale. Tax-free.
The buy was made shortly before midnight, and the primary arresting officer’s name was Detective Arthur Ernest Kovacs. Obviously, the name of the undercover narc who set up the buy did not appear. Doug apparently walked to the bar, because there was no mention of officers’ finding or searching his Porsche. He also must have known the narc fairly well, because Doug was unarmed, and it mentioned several times that the two men had an ongoing relationship. There was a list of prospective witnesses, most of whom sounded like other Denver police officers or lab technicians. It appeared that no fewer than fourteen people were needed to bring down Douglas Shelton.
Streeter was disappointed when he finished. Nothing seemed to pertain to his search. He decided to call Detective Kovacs and fish around. Kovacs’ work number was listed in the report, and the detective picked up on the second ring.
“Kovacs here,” he answered abruptly, like he was just on his way to lunch or, more important to a man with his bowel miseries, to the restroom. Streeter explained who he was, that he was working for the estate of Doug Shelton, and that the survivors were curious about the arrest. Kovacs made it clear that Doug’s estate was of no concern to him.
“No offense there—Mr. Streeter, was it? Yeah. But I give a good rat’s ass if any of them ever find more money.” Kovacs now sounded bored, like he was reading junk mail out loud. “This bum made his money from selling drugs, and in case you haven’t heard, that’s against the law. Hell, if we knew he had any cash laying around, we’d have grabbed it for the state. We can do that, you know. Your client’s just lucky we didn’t go after their house and stuff like that—attach all the assets from illegal activities. That’s the way we used to do it in Detroit, back when I worked out there. Now, if that’s it, I’ll be saying goodbye. Maybe you should try the girl. You might have better luck with her than we did.”
“His fiancée? That’s who I’m working for. Story Moffatt.”
“I ain’t talking about any Story. Or any poem or any book, for that matter. I’m talking about the broad at the bar. The fuck’s her name? It was on the witness list.”
Streeter shuffled through the papers on his desk and found the last page of Kovacs’ report, with the witness list. He started reading all of the women’s names out loud.
“Nora Lewinski?”
“No, she’s over at the lab. Keep going.”
“Shannon Mays?”
“Bingo. There you go, Mike Hammer. She was the one that was waiting for him over at Marlowe’s. He told our guy about her just before we popped him. We sent a couple uniforms over to talk to her after the arrest. We’d a loved to pop her, too. Smug little bitch.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Possession of a wine spritzer ain’t a crime in this state, ace. Least not that I ever heard of. Anyhow, we found her just sitting there having a drink. Happy as a pig in shit, if you pardon my French. A real cool customer. We tell her that her boyfriend just got nailed and she acts like we read her the weather report for Poland or something. But we had no cause for an arrest.”
“Why wasn’t she listed in the report itself?”
“Cause she didn’t mean nothing to the investigation.”
“Then why is she on the witness list?”
“No reason really. Just to bust her chops a little. Maybe shake her up some. Damned coke whore.”
“Do you have an address on her? A phone number?”
Kovacs grunted something bitter-sounding at the other end but then said he’d check. A couple of minutes later, he came back on the line.
“I couldn’t find no phone. She told us she lives at a joint, some high-rise, in Capitol Hill. Seven forty Pennsylvania. Number nine oh three. But I doubt she’s going to be much help to you.”
“Was she that uncooperative?”
“You might say so.” Kovacs honked out a thick grunt indicating amusement. “I think you’ll find her—how would I put it?—very tight-lipped. Anything else, ace?”
“No. That’ll do it. And, Kovacs, it’s been a real pleasure.”
Former Detroit cop, Streeter thought as he hung up. An FBI agent he knew once told him that Detroit cops were world-class scammers and shakedown artists. He said that the Detroit FBI office was the only one in the entire country where the bureau specifically told its agents to share nothing with local police officers. He said so many of them were on the take there was no way of knowing whom to trust.
Just from his attitude, Streeter could picture Kovacs rutting around Motown, “kiting the coloreds out of a few bucks, ace,” and generally being a useless imbecile. We’ll see who’s tight-lipped, the bounty hunter thought. Just because this Shannon Mays wouldn’t talk to a clown like Kovacs didn’t mean she wouldn’t talk to him.
At his end, Kovacs could feel a decided twinge of activity in his lower intestine when he hung up. Pushing fifty-five, randomly flatulent, and constipated as a cement block, the detective was chugging into retirement some three months away. He subsisted primarily on cut-rate bourbon, Maalox, and your basic bran cereals smothered in prunes. Any inquiries into the whole Shelton business were about as welcome as another bowel obstruction. He decided to make a call up north for a little input on the matter. This bounty hunter probably didn’t know his ass from a rearview mirror, but Kovacs had heard of Story Moffatt. What he heard was, you don’t want to underestimate her. He’d make the call later. First, he grabbed the Sports Illustrated off his desk and headed for the John, determined yet realistically glum. A weary veteran, he knew he was in for another long and at best moderately productive siege.
Shannon’s building, imperiously named Penwood Heights, was a concrete high-rise built in the mid-1960s near the governor’s mansion. The on-site manager was an aging, painted beauty who wore perfume so foul it could drop a wasp at ten feet. She was the kind of maintenance day drinker who was never really drunk, yet never fully sober. Streeter was surprised that a nice building would have such a rank manager. Fortunately, she was incredibly high-strung and talkative.
“My name is Nancy,” she said when she buzzed him into her office just off the lobby. “Who did you say you’re looking for, dear?”
She wore orange polyester slacks tight enough to render her childless and stood in the doorway with a cigarette in her right hand, the elbow braced against her side. Her left forearm ran across her waist in front, with that hand holding the right elbow for support. She looked fragile, like one solid belch would cause her to fall apart.
“Shannon Mays. I was told she lives in nine oh three, but the name on the register out there is Viveney. I buzzed up and they said Shannon doesn’t live here anymore. I was wondering if you might have a forwarding address. She witnessed an accident and we need her help.”
He’d used that witness story a thousand times. It made landlords feel safe in giving out forwarding addresses.
“Oh my.” Nancy’s ashen face flashed a sharp crimson. “Well, we don’t have, I mean, there is no forwarding address. Shannon’s dead. She died some, uhm, some, I don’t know, maybe three months ago. Or so.”
Streeter froze. His first lead and here she was dead. That bozo Kovacs knew it, too. Tight-lipped is right.
“Just a few months ago?” At first he asked it because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, but then he realized the timing was curious.
“Yes, well, something like that, dear.” Nancy seemed genuinely saddened by having to relate the grim news. Her erratic speech was due equally to Scoresby’s Scotch and actual distress. “My goodness, yes. It was so sad. Such an attractive woman.”
“Do you know what happened?” he asked.
“Car wreck. It was, oh my, a big car accident. Out on the freeway. Well, I don’t mean there were big cars or anything.” Nancy paused to suck in a deep breath. Then she hacked out a phlegmy cough that sounded like part of her throat came up with it. “It’s just that, uhm, it was a big collision. Two people died. Shannon and her boyfriend, I think it was. Only one car, we heard later.”
Doug died in a one-car accident. “Was the boyfriend’s name Doug Shelton?”
“That was it. Yes. Very nice-looking young man.”
Streeter felt his stomach twitch and his skin got suddenly warm. Obviously, Story knew about this. “Is Shannon buried here in Denver? Was her family from here?”
“I believe they were from, uh, let me see, California.” Nancy took a deep drag from her cigarette and then looked around for her ashtray. “That other woman was here from, ah, from the lawyer, from the lawyer’s office, asking a lot of questions, too. Maybe she’s working on the same thing you are, dear.”
“What woman? When?” He snapped the words out.
Nancy seemed upset by his tone—almost guilty, like she had done something wrong. “I’m sorry, dear. Let me, uh, think for a minute. I still have her card. No, it was the card for the lawyer. She, let’s think, she had a very strange name. Like a man. She was just here about a week ago.”
The manager’s forehead went into spasms of concern. She pulled a stack of business cards out of a desk drawer and started rifling through it. The card she sought was near the top. She studied it and then handed it to him. That done, she appeared deeply relieved. It was Tom Cooper’s card.
“Did the woman give you her title?”
Nancy frowned again. “She was a, uhm, what do they call it? Something legal.”
“Paralegal?”
“That’s it. Funny name she, uh, had. A man’s name. Donnie. Ronnie. Something like that. I think, yes, it was Ronnie. Cute little thing. Very serious, though.”
It figured that a greedy ambulance chaser like Cooper would be on the trail of the money, Streeter thought. And the lawyer easily would have known about Shannon. Streeter’s only surprise was that it took Cooper a couple of months to get over here. The bounty hunter knew he had to get together with Story to talk about it. He was angry at her for not telling him about Shannon, but far more angry at himself for being so careless and not asking for details. Still, why the hell would she not let him know all about the accident? He had asked her if Doug had any girlfriends, and it was doubtful that Story believed Mays was just Doug’s pal. It could turn out to be an insignificant detail, but it didn’t do much for his trust level with his new client. He wondered what else Story neglected to tell him. He definitely wanted to talk to her, but for right now he mainly wanted a drink. That and to get out of range of Nancy’s hideous perfume.
EIGHT
Story didn’t liked Streeter’s attitude on the phone when they set up the meeting. He sounded surly, sarcastic. She did not need grief from the hired help. However, she did want a progress report. Also, she wanted to talk to him about that dipshit Cooper’s latest ploy. Sometimes Story wondered why men didn’t simply shut up and get with the program. Just because they didn’t menstruate, they seemed to think they ran everything.
And what was with this Thomas Cooper? He calls a meeting with her to discuss “Doug’s outstanding balance,” as if it were any of her concern. She didn’t know specific numbers, but Doug had told her more than once that he dished out a huge amount of money to his attorney right after the arrest. Now Cooper was going to try and browbeat her into paying his phony bills. That kind of grief was something else she did not need. If he kept pushing her, he’d find out that hassling Story Moffatt could be about as pleasant as attempting foreplay with a cornered razorback.
But Mr. Streeter concerned her more right now. Even though he ruined her lawsuit and he was crabby on the phone, she liked the guy. He was probably no genius, but he was street smart and he had a gentle way about him without losing his masculine edge. As if someone with forearms and shoulders like his could ever lose his masculinity. They planned to meet at the Pearl Street Grill, an upscale, quasi-British pub in south-central Denver. She liked the Grill’s secluded patio. The meeting was set for eight o’clock Friday night, and he was calmly nursing a Beck’s Dark when she walked in a little before nine.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Streeter.” Her smile was barely noticeable as she walked to the back patio, where he was waiting for her at the far end, near the lighted garden. “Business, you know.”
